citizenship, learning, education: themes and...
TRANSCRIPT
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Published in Citizenship Studies 13(2) (2009), pp. 85-103
[DOI:10.1080/13621020902749027]
Introduction to Special Issue of Citizenship Studies on “Citizenship, Learning and Education”
(edited by Rachel Brooks & John Holford)
Citizenship, Learning, Education: Themes and Issues
Rachel Brooks1 and John Holford
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1. Introduction
The explosion of sociological, political and legal literature on citizenship over the past decade
has been paralleled in many countries by policy initiatives to develop and extend citizenship
education. Recent years have also witnessed a burgeoning of research on citizenship and
education: new international journals have been established (such as Education, Citizenship
and Social Justice1 and Citizenship, Teaching and Learning
2); the European Union has
commissioned several large-scale research projects in this area;3 and the International
Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement is working on a is working on a
comparative study of citizenship education in around 30 countries. There has, however, been
surprisingly little recent cross-fertilisation between educational research on citizenship and
1 Department of Political, International & Policy Studies, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH.
2 School of Education, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB.
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other areas of citizenship studies research. The purpose of this special issue of Citizenship
Studies is to contribute to redressing this.
While many citizenship scholars seem broadly aware that „citizenship‟ is of growing
importance in educational curricula, few have attempted any systematic exploration of what
this might imply. The exceptions almost prove the rule: Delanty (2003), for instance, argues
in a brief paper for seeing „citizenship as a learning process‟ (but this was an invited
contribution to a special issue of an Education journal); Hoffman (2004) devotes three pages
of his Citizenship beyond the State to an evaluation of the Crick Report. In contrast,
citizenship education literature often refers to sociological writing; typically, however, it uses
this almost symbolically, to provide theoretical authority or background. Too seldom do
educational researchers use educational perspectives to contribute to debates on citizenship
beyond the educational sphere: exceptions suggest the potential of such work (cf, e.g., Green,
Preston & Janmaat 2006, Lister et al. 2003). In funded research programmes, citizenship
education tends to be treated as an aspect of educational research – and thus largely ignored
by the wider social science community.
This special issue is based on the view that perspectives from educational research have much
to contribute to the understanding of contemporary citizenship. Education, has, of course,
been a recurring theme in philosophy and social theory of citizenship for millenia (Heater
2004); the recent tendency to „separate development‟ is both odd and regrettable. The special
issue has, therefore, three main aims: to provide Citizenship Studies readers, and thus the
broader community of citizenship scholars, with insights into contemporary research on
citizenship education; to provide analyses of contemporary international developments in
citizenship education, covering a range of aspects of education; and to suggest how
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theoretical perspectives and empirical findings from learning and educational research on
citizenship might contribute to broader citizenship scholarship.
The main purpose of this article is to introduce some of the key debates in the field, and
signal the ways in which these are taken forward by the authors who have contributed to the
special issue. We first consider some of the reasons why interest in citizenship education has
grown over recent years, and how these have often been underpinned by a more general
revival of interest in the concept of citizenship in many parts of the world. We also explore
the idea of a „learning society‟ and how this has impacted on citizenship education initiatives,
at the level of both theory and practice. We then move on to consider some of the key debates
about the content and nature of citizenship education that have engaged scholars in this area
over recent years. In particular, we consider the location of citizenship education and the
impact of context on the type of learning that takes place. We thus describe the ways in which
it has been incorporated in both school-based education and post-compulsory, lifelong
learning, and analyse the similarities and differences between these different forms of
provision. We also outline some of the debates about whether citizenship is better learnt
through formal or informal provision.
We then move on to consider more explicitly the content of citizenship education initiatives.
Here, we focus on the tensions between emphasising knowledge transmission, on the one
hand, and more practically-focussed „active citizenship‟ on the other. We also consider some
of the related debates about the extent to which citizenship education should focus on the
rights of citizens vis-à-vis their responsibilities, and the capacity of citizenship education (in
its various guises) to address structural inequalities within society. While citizenship
education programmes have often been developed at the national level, there is considerable
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debate about whether initiatives would be better aimed at inculcating a sense of membership
of other types of community. Indeed, there is now a growing literature on education for
global citizenship, particularly in light of debates about post-national citizenship. This is
explored in a later section of this article. Finally, we draw together these strands to consider
some of the ways in which theoretical and empirical work on citizenship education can enrich
the broader area of citizenship studies.
In parallel with the growth of policy and pedagogical interest in citizenship education, we
have seen a marked growth in the volume of evidence available to inform discussion about it.
Varied in nature and quality, this new evidence falls into several – overlapping and
intersecting – categories. There are, first of all, studies of policy in citizenship education: its
development and nature. There are studies of curriculum, and of teaching approaches and
methods. There are evaluations of the impact and effect of policies and curricula, and
attempts to explore what people (adults and children) learn as a result of the teaching of
citizenship. There are studies of the content of citizenship learning, and of what knowledge,
skills, attitudes and values „educated‟ citizens might be expected to have. There is an
increasing number not only of country-based studies, but of major comparative surveys. And
„behind‟ all of these is a range of historical and theoretical studies of the development of
citizenship education, and what it might or should comprise.
This special issue seeks to illustrate, rather than to provide a detailed account of, or
commentary on, this work.4 In a rapidly-developing area, research is conducted both within
public sector universities and research institutes, and in the private and „third‟ sector. It
involves some curiosity-based scholarship, but the principal drivers are the demands of policy
development and improved educational practice. For example, the Council of Europe‟s
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„Education for Democratic Citizenship‟ (EDC) project, initiated in 1996, was designed (inter
alia) „to actively encourage political leaders, decision-makers and people on the ground to
treat EDC as a priority of educational policies‟ and „to come to the aid of practitioners by
providing them with the necessary tools: concepts, methods, political and legal references,
examples, case studies, training materials, exchanges and networks‟. In pursuit of these, it set
out a range of goals for which research was essential:
to define the conceptual framework, support reflection about terminology and
theoretical research into the concept of citizenship education;
to identify the basic skills required to practise democracy in European
societies;
to define the learning experiences and methods of EDC both within the school
and in the context of lifelong learning;
to identify and publicise examples of diversified practice in EDC;
to explore the contribution of the media and new information technologies in
disseminating the knowledge implicit in EDC, in setting up networks and data
bases and disseminate innovative projects;
to identify and support partnerships between the various environments and
people involved in EDC: schools, parents, media, companies, local
communities, youth organisations, adult education centers, political and
cultural institutions etc.;
to identify methods and strategies of training teachers and other trainers
involved in EDC (Bîrzéa 2000)
As international organisations go, the Council of Europe is hardly a big fish: nevertheless, the
EDC project (subsequently re-titled „Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human
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Rights‟), has provided a focus for a number of networks, conferences, seminars and
publications, with policy, practice and research dimensions.5
Other international organisations have developed policy and research concerns relating to
citizenship. Each reflects the particular organisation‟s perspective. As noted above, the
European Commission‟s Directorate General for Research has supported a number of major
projects in the area within its research framework programmes. In addition to projects related
explicitly to „citizenship‟, there are also a number which address related policy agendas, such
as education for social inclusion and social cohesion, and others which incorporate analysis
of citizenship within broader research on education.6 But the EU‟s impact on the „knowledge
base‟ is not limited to such major research projects alone. It supports a range of programmes,
educational in the broad sense, from student exchange to town twinning, which often
generate research reports, academic papers and evaluative reports.7
As Avril Keating shows in her paper below, EU and Council of Europe contributions can be
traced back to their policy concerns; similar trajectories can be found in the work of other
international organisations, and of national governments. In addition to the direct influence
which the need for informed policy development and enhancement of educational practice
has on research, the fashion for „evidence-based‟ policy, and for measurement, indicators and
targets, has been influential. We see this, for example, in the European Commission‟s project
(2005-07) to develop „indicators‟ of „active citizenship‟ and „education and training for active
citizenship‟,8 and in the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation‟s
Understanding the Social Outcomes of Learning project.9 Similar policy concerns clearly lie
behind the very influential and important work in this area of the International Association
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for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), in particular its 1999 and 2009
comparative surveys of civic education and citizenship learning.10
The contributions to this special issue offer, we believe, some new insights into learning for
citizenship. The papers draw on work from a number of disciplines including education,
sociology, history, political science and management studies, and from different parts of the
work (including Eastern Europe, Australia, the US and the UK).
As readers of Citizenship Studies will be aware, the growth in interest in citizenship as a
political project over recent decades has come from both the right and the left of the
spectrum. Those on the right have tended to be attracted by the dual emphasis that citizenship
places on the individual‟s rights to pursue his or her own interests (without impediment from
the state) and on the duties and obligations of individuals towards the state. While those on
the left have often been sceptical of its value, sometimes seeing it as too closely entwined
with capitalist endeavours, during the last two decades of the twentieth century various left-
of-centre governments have sought to foreground the concept through a number of different
policy measures (Faulks, 2000). This increasing interest can be attributed to a number of
different, but often inter-related factors. In part, it is associated with the demise of the welfare
state in many developed nations and a concomitant drive to encourage citizens to take
increased responsibility for their own well-being, rather than relying on the state. Indeed,
Landrum (2002) has argued that, within the UK, Labour‟s clear emphasis on the
responsibilities of citizenship, as well as citizens‟ rights, has been part of a broader project to
re-educate people that the state is an enabler, rather than a provider of services. It has also
been seen as part of a response to the perceived problems of living in an increasingly
multicultural and ethnically diverse society – by helping to foster social cohesion and a
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common sense of identity, as well as duties and obligations to a common community.
Similarly, the emphasis placed on collective membership and responsibilities to others,
central to many understandings of citizenship, is thought by some to offer a useful antidote to
the worse excesses of societal individualism. It has also been driven by a concern that young
people, in particular, lack the political knowledge and skills to act effectively as citizens, and
are often not strongly embedded within their communities (Henn et al., 2005; Vromen, 2003).
Finally, interest in citizenship (and, in particular, citizenship education) in some parts of the
world can be seen to stem from the emergence of recently democratised states (such as South
Africa and in Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe) and the need to enable their
populations to understand the concepts of democracy and human rights (Osler and Starkey,
2003).
The heightened political profile given to the concept of citizenship across the globe has led to
a number of specific initiatives aimed at inculcating particular types of citizenship. Within the
realm of social policy, these have included „citizenship ceremonies‟ and „citizenship tests‟,
both targeted primarily at immigrants taking up residence in a new country. However, the
most commonly used policy tool used to develop citizenship is undoubtedly education -
broadly conceived, and including both formal and informal types of learning. Compulsory
education, in particular, has been thought of as an effective vehicle for tackling some of the
age-related problems outlined above, particularly young people‟s alleged political apathy,
their disengagement from formal politics and their lack of knowledge about political
institutions (Lister et al., 2005; Phelps, 2005). Young people have also been targeted through
initiatives to encourage „active citizenship‟ through community involvement and
volunteering, while older learners have also been the focus of various programmes – at the
local, national and regional level, within the workplace and across specific communities.
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2. The ‘learning society’
Though our primary focus in this special issue is the recent upsurge of interest in citizenship
education, the role of education in „making citizens‟ is no recent discovery. In what has
become a standard text, Heater (2004) traces the evolution of western civic education from
classical Greece. He alludes to – though he does not explore – the Confucian contribution.
Historians have often pointed to links between the growth of state education in the west and
the extension of citizenship – whether understood in terms of the franchise or more broadly.
In Britain, for instance, Robert Lowe famously advocated the 1870 Education Act as
necessary for „educating our future masters‟ (Reeder, 1980, p. 8). Lowe was no egalitarian;11
and though more radical views were to be found, the leading school citizenship text of the
day emphasised duties and responsibilities (Arnold-Foster 1898).
The late Victorians also debated whether citizenship was best taught – by instruction in
schools, evening classes or books – or „caught‟, in boys‟ clubs, youth movements and the
like. Half a century later, Richard Livingstone argued that both were over-rated. Civics
should be taught, to be sure, but he saw a paradox: „Youth studies but cannot act [as a
citizen]; the adult must act, but has no opportunity to study‟ (p. 94). He was a strong advocate
of adult education: this gave „everyone a chance of thinking about life when he is facing it
and about its problems when he has to solve them‟ (p. 95) Drawing on Aristotle‟s remark that
„men acquire virtues ... by practising them‟, however, he also emphasised the importance of
key „institutions whose members learn the habit of citizenship by being citizens‟, such as
trades unions (p. 100). .
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This approach – similar thinking can be found in writers such as Dewey and Tawney – was
strongly influenced by such movements as the Workers‟ Educational Association (WEA).
During the Great War, the British Ministry of Reconstruction‟s Adult Education Committee
argued that „adult education is a permanent national necessity, an inseparable part of
citizenship, and therefore should be both universal and lifelong‟ (Smith 1919, p. 5). While
adult education provision has seldom matched these vaunting ideals, the notion that education
should be lifelong became influential in the later twentieth century. In the 1970s,
international organisations began to advocate notions such as the learning society and lifelong
learning - most memorably in the Faure report (UNESCO 1972). By the 1990s these
perspectives – suitably amended to fit the neoliberal politics of the times – dominated the
thinking of international organisations such as the EU and the OECD, and were beginning to
shape national education and welfare policies in the west (Field 2006).
What does a learning society (or lifelong learning) imply in relation to citizenship? It is, of
course, a much contested concept. In one important tradition, the learning society comes
close to an ideal of a good society: a society in which educational opportunities are available
to all. „A democratic society, almost by definition, is an “educative society”. ... Any good
citizen is, perforce, a learner; the good society is an educative society‟ (Kidd 1961, 12).
Lifelong education, as conceived in the Faure Report, came close to this view. A second
view, however, sees societies as increasingly risky, globalised, and knowledge-based (cf
Beck 1992, Giddens 1990); learning is a necessary element of individuals‟ capacity to be
reflexive, and thus to adapt to unpredictability. This approach also draws on theories of
reflective practice and reflective learning (Schön 1983). Others have pointed to a rhetorical
dimension of lifelong learning: as adumbrated by governments in particular, it often involves
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expecting, encouraging or requiring citizens to learn – for example, through reforms of
welfare or transforming learning into a desirable consumer commodity (Field 2006, Holford
& Jarvis 2000). Griffin (1999), for instance, noticed that „where the reform of the welfare
state is a primary political objective, lifelong learning, and other ways of achieving a
“learning society” or a “learning culture”, are to be discovered in the policy literature ...
integrating it with other reform strategies which have the effect of making individuals less
dependent upon the state.‟ (p. 451)
Edwards (2002, 2004) has argued that the resort to strategies of lifelong learning during the
1990s reflected states‟ changing attitudes to welfare and their citizens: governing is about
mobilising people to help themselves, rather than providing services to them (Edwards 2002,
p. 353). On this view, which draws on the work of Rose (1999a, 1999b), lifelong learning is
seen as a „technology of government‟: one which not only plays a part in governing society,
but draws citizens into taking an active role in shaping themselves as responsible citizens.
While this view probably exaggerates the effectiveness of such approaches (Ecclestone &
Hayes 2008, Holford 2006a), education in the learning society often has a strong affective
dimension, seeking to reshape not only citizens‟ behaviour, but also their identities and
emotions.
Lifelong learning, as it emerged in the neo-liberal climate of the 1990s, has often been
criticised as excessively vocational: „human resource development in drag‟ (Boshier 1998, 4).
Certainly much lifelong learning has put a premium on learning in and for the workplace –
whereas earlier adult education movements had tended to emphasise learning to provide
working people with in a broader, more humane, education. Policy literature typically
stresses the importance of employment for effective participation in society, and of learning
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as key to developing and maintaining essential work-related skills (e.g., CEC 1995, DfEE
1999, Field 2006). One approach to encouraging „active citizenship‟ stresses entrepreurial
attitudes. An important strand of literature has also sought to explore how workplace learning
affects citizenship – even as de facto a form of citizenship education. Catherine Casey‟s
paper in this issue examines how contemporary models of economic organisation – such as
the „learning organisation‟ – shape the expression and learning of citizenship.
3. Key debates in citizenship education research
3.1 The role of schools and lifelong learning
Across the world, many governments have chosen to develop programmes for citizenship
education and learning focussed their efforts on the school sector. In part, this can be
explained by the relative ease of accessing large groups of people through such initiatives.
The introduction of citizenship education as a compulsory component of the National
Curriculum in England in 2002, for example, ensured that all young people under the age of
16 would receive some exposure to learning for citizenship by the time they finished school,
and similar policies have been put in place in many other countries (Arthur et al., 2008). The
schools-focus of much provision is also underpinned by the belief that it is young people who
are perhaps most in need of citizenship education (as a result of their disengagement with
formal politics, discussed above), and who may – by virtue of their age – be most inclined to
change their behaviour and/or attitudes as a result. It has also been argued that citizenship
education should be seen as part of a „wider moralising agenda directed towards the “anti-
social” behaviour of aberrant youth‟ (Gifford, 2004, p.148).
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Despite the key role assumed by schools, various empirical studies have pointed to significant
practical impediments to teaching citizenship effectively through the compulsory sector –
including the status of the subject, inadequate training and support, and considerable variation
in the level of teacher competence (Faulks, 2006; Kerr et al., 2004). A number of the
contributions to this special address this theme. Indeed, those papers that focus primarily on
citizenship education within schools point to some of the problems associated with the
location of delivery. Bennett et al. emphasise the ways in which approaches to teaching in
schools and colleges are often significantly out of step with young people‟s preferred learning
styles – resulting in negative outcomes for civic learning, as well as for other subject areas.
Similarly, Dimitrov and Boyadjieva argue that, within Bulgaria and other Eastern European
countries, school education is often not relevant to contemporary life – which has
considerable impact on the potential efficacy of citizenship education.
During the twentieth century, adult education was often closely bound up with working-class
or nationalist movements; citizenship was implicit in its content and aims (Roberts 2003,
Steele 2007, Freire 1972). Some, drawing on such experiences, came to adopt adult education
(in the guise of community education or community development) as vehicle for encouraging
the growth of citizenship, initially in colonial settings (Holford 1988, Whitehead 1997), later
in urban regeneration in the west (Lovett 1975). Popular adult education movements such as
the WEA advocated „an education generous, inspiring and humane‟ for all (Tawney 1953,
34); in such movements, deeply influenced by the autodidacticism of their leaders, rigorous
academic application was seen as the route to truth and understanding. Where adult education
became a mechanism by which the state sought to establish or strengthen democratic
institutions or practices, a tension has often arisen between the „thick‟ conceptions of
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democracy, emphasising participation and dialogue, required to mobilise adult educational
movements, and the more pragmatic demands of economic development and efficiency
(Holford 2006b).
„Education is the best economic policy we have,‟ runs Tony Blair‟s epigraph to Britain‟s
Learning Age white paper (DfEE 1998, 9) But, according to the then Secretary of State for
Education and Employment, learning also „helps make ours a civilised society, develops the
spiritual side of our lives and promotes active citizenship‟ (DfEE 1998, 7). In general,
however, economic aims have predominated in both policy literature and lifelong learning
practice since the mid-1990s (Mitchell 2006, Robertson 2007, Taylor 2005). Casey‟s
contribution to this special issue, exploring the impact of workplace learning on
understandings of citizenship, illustrates this and explores its impact.
3.2 Content of citizenship education programmes
A key debate within both academic and policy-related literature on citizenship education
focuses on the balance between what can be described as „knowledge transmission‟, on the
one hand, and „active citizenship‟ on the other. Some educationalists have strongly favoured
prioritising an active approach to citizenship-learning, whereby young people are encouraged
to take part in a wide range of practical activities, such as representing their fellow students
on school councils and contacting their political representatives to discuss issues they feel
strongly about (Davies and Evans, 2002; Ireland et al., 2006; Wilde, 2005). A commitment to
„active citizenship‟ underpinned the view of the Citizenship Advisory Group in the UK,
which was set up to inform the citizenship curriculum, introduced as a compulsory
component of the National Curriculum in 2002. Indeed, its recommendation that „community
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involvement‟ should be a key strand of citizenship education was accepted by the
government. This is defined as „learning about and becoming helpfully involved in the life
and concerns of communities, including learning through community involvement and
service to the community‟ (QCA, 1998, p.11-13). This emphasis is replicated within
citizenship education programmes in a number of other countries, including the US (Baldi et
al., 2001) and Israel (Ichilov, 2008).
Measures to further „active citizenship‟ have also emerged from outside the formal education
sector – for example through various initiatives to encourage young people to take up
volunteering within their communities (Annette, 2005; Matthews et al., 2009). Indeed, in the
UK, the Labour government established the Russell Commission in 2004, with a specific
remit to find ways to increase the take-up of voluntary work amongst the young and develop
a National Framework for Youth Action and Engagement (Russell Commission, 2005). The
article by Bennett et al. in this issue presents a strong theoretical justification for engaging
young people actively through citizenship education. Indeed, they argue that the increasing
availability of digital media, in particular, opens up many new and innovative avenues for
young people – in schools and elsewhere – to practise their citizenship in very active ways.
Similarly, Dimitrov and Boyajieva are broadly welcoming of more active approaches to
citizenship education, suggesting that they can help to curb some of the particular problems
witnessed in Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries.
Nevertheless, this emphasis on learning through engagement in forms of citizenship activity,
and the strong encouragement of voluntary work (within the UK and US contexts, in
particular), has not been universally welcomed. Indeed, Coffey (2004) has contended that
such practices reflect an agenda that focuses on the skills and competencies necessary to
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make a contribution to the economy and the realignment of concepts of social and moral
understanding, rather than more innovative and democratic understandings of citizenship. It
has also been argued that the playing out of „active citizenship‟ in the lives of young people is
often strongly differentiated by gender, and tends to perpetuate traditional gender roles. Arnot
and Dillabough (2000), for example, suggest that, for many young women, „active
citizenship‟ frequently means taking responsibility for themselves economically, while at the
same time taking care of others. Young men, on the other hand, receive stronger
encouragement to participate in a wider range of citizenship-related activities. They go on to
claim that „current conceptions of citizenship and democratic schooling not only endorse
particular forms of masculinity, but serve, at least in part, to regulate the production of the
citizen‟ (p.16).
In some ways, this has important elements of commonality with the wider debate about the
respective weighting given to citizens‟ rights and responsibilities within citizenship education
curricula (and also, of course, within approaches to citizenship more generally). While many
educationalists have welcomed the emphasis on doing citizenship, rather than just learning
about it, others have argued that the focus on active citizenship and an individual‟s
responsibilities to his or her community has served to obscure the importance of rights.
Indeed, Lister et al.‟s (2005) empirical study of understandings of citizenship among young
people in the UK has highlighted the ways in which, over the course of the last decade of the
twentieth century, a rights-based discourse came to be replaced with one which stressed the
importance of social responsibility and/or economic self-sufficiency. Moreover, they argue
that the young people involved in their research found it much more difficult to identify their
rights than their responsibilities. Scholars have also pointed out that not all types of „activity‟
are equally valued by teachers, politicians and other adults and that, in some cases, this has
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led to the privileging of „depoliticised‟ forms of citizenship (Ahier et al., 2003). In their
analysis of responses to young people‟s participation in protests against the Second Iraq War
in 2003, for example, Cunningham and Lavalette (2004) suggest that this form of community
involvement was widely condemned by many of those in authority and seen as largely out of
step with the forms of active citizenship encouraged by school curricula. They go on to argue
that:
On the one hand, citizenship classes encourage children and young people to show a
concern for „the common good‟, to engage in „active citizenry‟ and to accept the
consequences of their actions; yet on the other hand, their „reward‟ for proactively
articulating their concerns over a major world crisis has been, on the whole,
admonishment and ridicule. (p.265)
3.3 Responding to social divisions
As noted above, one of the drivers behind the implementation of citizenship education in
many countries of the world has been a desire to respond to a number of perceived
contemporary social problems. The increasing ethnic diversity of many societies and the
ensuing tensions between different ethnic groups has been a particular focus of such
initiatives. Nevertheless, while the potential of citizenship education to address social
divisions in an effective manner has been widely stated, the capacity of citizenship education
programmes – as currently conceived – to do so remains a key area of debate. Indeed, this
constitutes the central focus of Preston‟s paper within this special issue.
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Within the UK context, Faulks (2006) has contended that structural inequalities within
society – relating to gender differences as well as differences by ethnicity, religion and social
class – warranted little discussion in the Crick Report (QCA, 1998), and that a coherent
approach to such structural differences within the citizenship education curriculum is lacking
as a result of the report‟s failure to recognise the conditions necessary to achieve equality.
The shortcomings of the Crick Report in relation to tackling racial prejudice and
discrimination have been highlighted by numerous writers (for example, Osler and Starkey,
2001 and Olssen, 2004), who have argued that ethnic diversity is presented largely as a
problem to be managed within society rather than an integral and enriching part of it. This, it
is claimed, is partially a result of the emphasis on national citizenship rather than post- or
supra-national forms (Gifford, 2004) or education for global citizenship (Davies et al., 2005).
Indeed, Faulks (2006) and Piper and Garratt (2004) go as far as to suggest that the form of
multiculturalism that underpins the Crick Report can be understood as legitimizing or even
engendering discrimination (for example, singling out individuals by celebrating their
differences from others and not encouraging all pupils to engage in critical exploration of
their own identities). Faulks concludes by arguing for a citizenship education based upon a
fluid conception of identity that is multiple and dynamic in nature and „an extensive element
of anti-discriminatory education….which seeks to understand and reconcile difference in
order to achieve equality for all individual citizens regardless of culture or ethnic origin‟
(p.65). Although this kind of critique has been made primarily with respect to
„race‟/ethnicity, many of the same arguments can be extended to other forms of structural
inequality, particularly in relation to the explicit foregrounding of anti-discriminatory
education.
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Clearly an important component of this debate is about the principles that underpin
citizenship education programmes and the ways in which they encourage pupils and teachers
to conceptualise notions such as identity and difference. However, the literature also points to
a number of more practical aspects of learning about citizenship that can have an important
impact on the ways in which young people (and older learners) come to think about social
divisions. Some feminist scholars have highlighted the potential of citizenship education to
address gender inequalities (Arnot, 2008). Indeed, in their wider discussion of the
experiences of young women across the Western world, Aaopla et al (2005) have argued that
citizenship education programmes can provide valuable fora for contesting gendered power
relations and their differential effect on young men and women from different class and
ethnic groups, and for exploring the ways in which constructions of masculinity and
femininity are dynamic and related to the public/private divide. However, as noted above,
others have contended that the way in which citizenship is taught in many schools and
colleges and, in particular, its emphasis on active involvement can help to perpetuate gender
stereotypes – with young men and young women engaging in different types of activity
(Roker and Eden, 2002) and being provided with few opportunities to reflect critically on
these patterns (Hall and Coffey, 2007). Similar concerns are reflected across the globe.
Miller-Idris (2005), for example, has outlined the difficulties for German teachers of
addressing xenophobia and racism effectively as part of citizenship education programmes, as
a result of some of the practical difficulties evident in schools, namely poor training,
inadequate resources and lack of assistance for teachers within the classroom. Similarly,
Ichilov (2003) argues that the perceived marginality of the subject in Israel (and the lack of a
formalised, codified body of knowledge) significantly limits its ability to address national and
religious divisions.
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3.4 National or post-national citizenship
A further key debate within the citizenship education literature relates to the nature and
boundaries of the community to which citizenship refers. Typically, the nation state has been
the focus of such programmes, and also the main driver behind them. As Osler and Starkey
(2003) note, „a major objective of education for national citizenship is to ensure that young
people understand their present and future roles within the constitutional and legal framework
of the state in which they live‟ (p.244). This is evident in numerous studies from different
parts of the globe: in India, in the 1990s, citizenship education was used to recast the country
in the image of a Hindu nation (Joshee, 2008); while Parmenter et al. (2008) claim that, in
Japan, current education policy and curriculum „allows very little room for identities or
citizenship beyond the nation‟ and systematically privileges the national over the sub-
national, the transnational and the global (p.211). However, some scholars have argued that
citizenship education programmes that maintain a solely national focus are increasingly likely
to be undermined as the constructed nature of national identity becomes more evident, and
people become more aware of the essentially artificial nature of the nation state (Bottery,
2003). Moreover, a strongly national policy focus has come under sustained attack from
educationalists who believe that it promotes an ethno-centric approach, a failure to recognise
diversity within nation states, a lack of understanding of international issues, and a tendency
to treat non-nationals as „Others‟ (Hahn, 2005). Furthermore, it is claimed that education for
national citizenship often fails to engage with the actual experiences of young people, who,
„in a globalised world are likely to have shifting and multiple cultural identities and a sense of
belonging that is not expressed first and foremost in terms of the nation‟ (Osler and Starkey,
2003, p.245).
21
In response to some of these issues, many educationalists have argued that a more global
focus needs to replace the dominant national emphasis within citizenship education – „as a
contribution towards the search for an elusive yet essential conception of global civic society‟
(Peters et al., 2008, p.2). For some, the alternative is education for post-national institutional
citizenship, which recognises the increasing prevalence of multi-level governance. Here,
citizenship education involves understanding and practising a more global citizenship within
multiple sites of political membership. Others have suggested that citizenship education
needs to move away from its focus on political institutions and emphasise, instead, the
cultural components to citizenship identity. In developing this position, Gifford (2004) argues
that a useful starting point is „to consider the extent to which individuals are increasingly
participants not in states and other territorial entities but discursive networks of contested
information and knowledge‟ (p.155). This approach would draw upon young people‟s own
political concerns and recognise their potential for establishing new forms of solidarity at the
local, national and/or transnational level. This has much in common with Osler and Starkey‟s
(2003) conception of „cosmopolitan citizenship‟, which foregrounds the personal and cultural
aspects of citizenship and focuses on „enabling learners to make connections between their
immediate contexts and the national and global contexts‟ (p.252). As well as recognising the
multiple and dynamic identities (local, national and global) of young people, and
international inter-dependencies, they argue that cosmopolitan citizenship encourages a much
more sympathetic approach to social divisions observed and experienced locally:
It is insufficient ... to feel and express a sense of solidarity with others elsewhere if we
cannot establish a sense of solidarity with others in our own communities, especially
those whom we perceive to be different from ourselves. The challenge is to accept
22
shared responsibility for our common future and for solving our common problems. It
implies dialogue and peer collaboration to address differences of opinion…. (p.252).
Indeed, Osler and Starkey go on to contend that education then comes to assume a critical
role in equipping young people with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to enable them to
make a difference to the world in which they live.
These themes are addressed by several articles in this special issue. The national focus of
much citizenship education is implicit in many of the contributions, but is foregrounded in
the contributions by Preston, Macintyre and Simpson, and Keating. Preston focuses primarily
on the use of citizenship education for purposes of national security, post-„9/11‟, while
Keating is concerned to tease out the various ways in which European citizenship education
initiatives have shifted away from a national to a post-national conception of citizenship in
the last couple of decades. Macintyre and Simpson show some of the challenges involved in
developing and delivering a national policy on citizenship education. In relation to some of
the critiques of nationally-focussed programmes outlined above, she presents a largely upbeat
analysis of the ways in which citizenship education can be based on membership of a
political or civic community (which can recognise and value plurality both between and
within nation states), rather than of an ethnic, historical or cultural community.
4. Learning and citizenship
As we have seen, the Victorians debated whether citizenship should be taught or „caught‟: in
modern terms, education or socialisation. Subsequent educational research has moved this
23
debate forward. Where is it caught or taught? In the 1970s, Coombs proposed a typology of
educational contexts: formal, non-formal and informal (Coombs 1985; Coombs & Ahmad
1974). Formal and non-formal education refer to processes and institutions normally termed
schooling and part-time education (or training) respectively, but „informal education‟ referred
to:
The life-long process by which every person acquires and accumulates knowledge,
skills, attitudes and insights from daily experience and exposure to the environment –
at home, at work, at play; from the example and attitudes of family and friends; from
travel, reading newspapers and books; or by listening to the radio or viewing films or
television. Generally, informal education is unorganized, unsystematic and even
unintentional at times, yet it accounts for the great bulk of any person‟s total lifetime
learning – including that of a highly „schooled‟ person. (Coombs and Ahmad 1974, p.
8)12
Learning society perspectives have highlighted the role of informal and non-formal learning
contexts. The realisation that learning is not only conceptually different from teaching or
education, but may often occur without any formal teaching „input‟ whatever, has
underpinned the outcomes-based or „competency‟ approach to assessing learning. Informal
and incidental learning of attitudes, values and skills are also central to citizenship education.
„Democratic, socially integrated and active citizens are not born, but are created (reproduced)
in a socialisation process. ... [D]emocracy has to be learned and needs to be maintained‟
(Veldhuis 1997, p. 8). Nevertheless, despite the emphasis on participation and volunteering,
citizenship education still tends to be thought of primarily as a matter of „formal‟ education.
24
Learning, however, is not just a matter of location: it involves processes leading to relatively
lasting changes of capacity: motor, cognitive, emotional, motivational, attitudinal or social.
Illeris focuses on three dimensions in particular:
Firstly all learning has a content of skill or meaning. The acquisition of this
content is primarily a cognitive process …. Secondly, all learning is
simultaneously an emotional process … a process involving psychological
energy, transmitted by feelings, emotions, attitudes and motivations …. Thirdly,
learning is also a social process taking place in the interaction between the
individual and its surroundings, and thus in the final analysis a process
dependent on historical and societal conditions. (Illeris, 2002, p. 18)
Clearly learning citizenship in particular, with its dimensions of identity and action, must be
emotional and social, as well as cognitive. Recent insights into the social nature of learning
throw light on this. The notion that people play an active part in their own learning is well-
established within the literature of adult education (cf Freire 1972; Jarvis 1987). People‟s
active engagement is not only an advantage in enabling them to learn more effectively
(Knowles 1980), but also means they play a part in constituting the knowledge which they
learn (Lave & Wenger 1991, Wenger 1998). At first glance, the importance of individuals‟
taking an active role in learning articulates well not only with Aristotle, but with
contemporary notions of „active citizenship‟.
As Lave and Wenger (1991) emphasise, however, learners learn in social contexts. In their
terminology, learners‟ „situated learning activity‟ occurs within „communities of practice‟.
Knowledge (or „knowing‟) is located in the relations between learners, and in the „social
25
organisation and political economy of communities of practice‟ (p. 122). Whether
consciously or accidentally, those who constitute a community of practice are organised in
relations of power: these structure access, framing of issues, understandings of what is and
what is not legitimate knowledge and appropriate behaviour, and so forth. In this special
issue, Dimitrov and Boyadjieva use the metaphor of a battle: the communities within which
people learn shape how and what they learn.
The recent trends in many countries for educational policies to emphasise learner autonomy
may suggest an increasing openness to the informal and active dimensions of learning.
School students should „think for themselves‟; generic, „transferable‟ reasoning and
analytical skills are more important than accumulating knowledge. However, learner
autonomy is often constrained. In Britain, for example, there have been contradictory trends:
increased central direction over the curriculum, a strong reaction against „student-centred‟
learning methods, and an emphasis on making schools more accountable to their
„stakeholders‟ (principally, parents and business) (Holford & van der Veen 2003). Dimitrov
and Boyadjieva point in their article to the contradictions between the need for learning active
citizenship to involve its practice, and the power relationships which structure education in
Bulgaria.
5. Citizenship, Learning and Education
To the extent that citizenship is defined by what Poggi (1990) calls the „particular bond‟
between the people and the state (p. 28), the rights and obligations it provides for vary from
country to country, and over time. In the contemporary west, for instance, the requirement to
pay taxes is widespread, the obligation to provide military service rather less common than
26
formerly. In most western countries, several years‟ participation in education is now both an
entitlement and an obligation – though the entitlement is typically to specific forms of
education sanctioned by the state. Although states are also often encouraging participation in
learning throughout life, it is seldom either an entitlement or an obligation (except for limited
groups, such as migrants or the unemployed). The curriculum of compulsory education
therefore plays a significant part in shaping the way citizens understand their role in society
and polity.
By the same token, education now forms a major part of the activity and expenditure of most
nation-states. They are increasingly explicit about what education should deliver: and in
recent decades, in parallel with concerns about decreasing political engagement, especially
among the young, citizenship has become an explicit feature of the curriculum. For this
reason, states, and a wide range of non-state actors from international organisations to
teachers, have had to think about the nature of citizenship and how it should be taught and
learned. In other words, educational curricula have become important locations for the
articulation and practice of discourses of citizenship. States‟ attempts to „educate‟ their
citizens are not limited to formal education, of course. Thus they often seek to shape
workplace learning, typically in close liaison with business, to meet the demands of „global
competitiveness‟, and to shape attitudes to work among the unemployed.
However, citizenship is not defined only by people‟s relationship with the state; nor is
education (still less learning) limited to the years of compulsory schooling. Citizens work,
shop, are parents and friends, join clubs and societies, play sports, watch television: all these
and more are expressions of their citizenship. In many, if not all, of these activities, they
learn. Many citizens also join adult education classes, of course. The learning, whether
27
incidental or through formal study, that they do in these situations may seem remote from any
„citizenship curriculum‟. But in at least two respects it matters. Many non-state actors seek to
play „educational‟ roles: above all, perhaps, employers seek to shape the values and
behaviour of workers, and how people practise their citizenship shapes what they learn: there
is a „hidden curriculum‟ in society at large, as well as in the school.
28
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1 http://esj.sagepub.com/ (accessed 26 November 2008)
2 http://www.citized.info/?strand=6 (accessed 26 November 2008)
3 Illustrative examples under the Fifth and Sixth Framework research programmes are: „Orientations of Young
Men and Women to Citizenship and European Identity‟, „Intercultural Active Citizenship Education‟ and
„Education and Training for Governance and Active Citizenship in Europe‟. EU Framework Projects relating to
citizenship address questions such as: How are social changes reshaping concepts, such as „active citizenship‟
and „governance‟? Do women and men perceive citizenship differently? How can the education system
intervene to teach governance and active citizenship? How do people construct their identities? Do they feel
36
attached to their local area or their nation state? Do they consider themselves as European citizens?‟ (CEC
website: http://ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/knowledge/article_3281_en.htm).
4 While there is no adequate synoptic overview, Arthur, Davies & Hahn (2008) is a substantial collection
including a number of useful overviews of current work and of citizenship education in a range of countries. It
concentrates on the initial and higher education sectors, saying little about adult edcuation.
5 Thus, for example, the EDC‟s „first phase‟ (1997-2000) was principally concerned with research; the second
phase (2001-2004) was intended to „translate the results of the first phase into concrete policies and practices‟
while 2005 became the „European Year of Citizenship through Education‟ (Council of Europe 2005). Its website
incorporates many research outputs, educational and policy materials (such as a „pack‟ of „practical instruments
specifically designed to provide support to all those involved in education‟). See
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/edc/Default_en.asp (accessed 4 January 2009).
6 Current examples, under the Sixth Framework Programme, are the five-year integrated projects on „Strategies
for inclusion and social cohesion in Europe from education‟ (Includ-Ed) and „Towards a Lifelong Learning
Society in Europe: The Contribution of the Education System‟ (LLL2010) respectively.
7 See http://ec.europa.eu/education/more-information/moreinformation294_en.htm (accessed 4 January 2009)
and, for town-twinning, the „Europe for Citizens‟ programme.
8 The main outcomes of this project are set out in Hoskins & Mascherini (2009), Hoskins, Jesinghaus,
Mascherini et al. (2006), Hoskins, Villalba, Nijlen & Barber (2008). See also Holford (2008), Hoskins,
D‟Hombres & Campbell (2008), and other contributions to the European Educational Research Journal (Vol
7(3) 2008 - a special issue edited by Bryony Hoskins and Ruth Deakin Crick on „Social Justice, Research and
European Policy: defining and measuring key competences in education‟) and the papers presented at the
European Commission Centre for Reserach on Lifelong Learning‟s conference on „Working towards Indicators
on Active Citizenship‟ (http://crell.jrc.ec.europa.eu/active_citizenship.htm (accessed 4 January 2009)).
9 See Campbell (2006), Desjardins & Schuller (2006), OECD Directorate for Education (2007) and the Social
Outcomes of Learning website
http://www.oecd.org/document/9/0,3343,en_2649_35845581_33706505_1_1_1_1,00.html (accessed 4 january
2009).
10 The IEA‟s International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) investigates „the ways in which young
people are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens in a range of countries in the 21st century. In pursuit of
this purpose, the study will report on student achievement in a test of knowledge, conceptual understanding and
competencies in civic and citizenship education. It will also collect and analyse data about student dispositions
and attitudes relating to civics and citizenship. The study builds on the previous IEA studies of civic education,
particularly CIVED in 1999. ... The population to be studied is students in Grade 8 (on average including
students who are approximately 14 years of age) .... Grade 8 is a stage of secondary schooling in which
participation is universal in most countries and which has the greatest similarity in organisational contexts
across countries. ... The survey of teachers will be from the same schools as the students and there will be a
survey of the principals (or head teachers) in those schools. The minimum sample for a country will be 150
schools with about 3,500 students.‟ (International Civic and Citizenship Education Study Information
Brochure, available at: http://iccs.acer.edu.au/uploads/File/ICCS%20Information%20Brochure(1).pdf)
(Accessed 26 November 2008). Conducted between October 2008 and April 2009, the following countries
participated: Austria, Belgium (Flemish), Bulgaria, Chile, Chinese Taipei, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic,
Denmark, Domincan Republic, England, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong SAR, Indonesia,
Ireland, Italy, Korea, Latvia, Lichtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand,
Norway, Paraguay, Poland, Russian Federation, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
Thailand (http://www.iea.nl/icces.html (Accessed 26 November 2008)).
11 In a lecture to the Edinburgh Philosophical Institute in 1867, Lowe argued: „The lower classes ought to be
educated to discharge the duties cast upon them. They should also be educated that they may appreciate and
defer to a higher cultivation when they meet it; and the higher classes ought to be educated in a very different
37
manner, in order that they may exhibit to the lower classes that higher education to which, if it were shown to
them, they would bow down and defer.‟ (Lowe 1980, pp. 125-126)
12 According to Coombs, formal education and training occurs in school and post-school institutions, typically in
the public sector, and is the major mechanism of public intervention in education. It is characterised by
relatively centralised, stable and sequential curricula, and well-established structures of assessment. It is the
main locus of most state „civic education‟ policies and expenditure. Non-formal education is systematic
educational activity outside formal system (e.g. work-based training, community education programmes in
health, co-operation, etc., adult literacy programmes). It has been the main traditional source of state
intervention in post-school learning, and the main context for provision by NGOs, SMEs and the voluntary
sector. Informal education is unorganised, unsystematic and/or unintended lifelong learning, e.g. from home,
work, and media. It is the source of most learning over a lifetime, but the outcomes are strongly dependent on
individuals‟ learning environments. (Coombs 1985, esp. pp. 20-26.) In a major attempt to review and clarify the
literature on classifications of formal, non-formal and informal education, Colley et al. (2002) contest such
classifications. They argue that it is often the „blending of formal and informal‟ which leads to the most
significant learning; that there are „few, if any, learning situations where either informal or formal elements are
completely absent‟ (p. 6), and that „either the boundaries between formal, non-formal and informal learning or
education, or the relationships between them, can only be understood within particular contexts‟ which have
„historical, economic, social and political dimensions‟. (Colley et al. 2002, p. 7)